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Mechanisms and Models of Iridium Anomaly Shape Across the Cretaceous- Paleogene Boundary

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Mechanisms and Models of Iridium Anomaly Shape Across the Cretaceous- Paleogene Boundary in press Earth and Planetary Science Letters 1 1 FULL LENGTH ARTICLE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Mechanisms and models of iridium anomaly shape across the Cretaceous- 9 Paleogene boundary 10 11 12 13 Pincelli M. Hull1,2*, Peter J. S. Franks1, and Richard D. Norris1 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 1Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 40 41 2Present Address: Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 42 06520 43 44 * To whom correspondence should be addressed. Yale Department of Geology and Geophysics, 45 PO Box 208109, New Haven, CT 06520-8109; tel. 858 822-2783; fax 203-432-3134; E-mail: 46 [email protected] in press Earth and Planetary Science Letters 2 47 Abstract 48 The interpretation of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) iridium anomaly – and other 49 impact ejecta – as the result of a single, large asteroid impact has been the subject of much 50 debate, in part due to the distribution of impact markers beyond the narrow confines of the K-Pg 51 boundary sedimentary layer. Here, we revisit the hypothesized processes leading to the shape of 52 K-Pg iridium profiles including geochemical remobilization and/or diffusion, prolonged 53 deposition, volcanism, multiple impacts, and sediment mixing. Using evidence from the 54 literature and modeling of one North Pacific site, we find that sediment mixing of a single impact 55 event provides the most parsimonious mechanism for iridium profile shape in open ocean oxic 56 sediments, while the increase in background iridium bracketing the boundary likely has a 57 volcanic origin. In some past studies, a sediment mixing mechanism for iridium profile shape 58 was ruled out based on an overly simplified set of expectations for the effect of sediment mixing 59 on markers of geologically instantaneous events. Thus, we introduce and use a Lagrangian 60 sediment-mixing model to illustrate the theoretical effects of mixing on records of rapid events. 61 The sediment mixing origin for iridium anomaly shape, the correspondence in mixing extent 62 between iridium and microfossils, and the fit of sediment mixing models to an empirical iridium 63 profile indicate that iridium may provide a better tracer of mixing than previously proposed K-Pg 64 mixing tracers such as Ni-spinels. 65 66 67 68 Keywords 69 K/Pg boundary, impact ejecta, bioturbation, PGE, advection-diffusion model, fossil record 70 preservation 71 in press Earth and Planetary Science Letters 3 71 1. Introduction 72 An extraterrestrial impact like that at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary results 73 in the rapid deposition of a number of physical and chemical markers of the event (Kyte 2002) , 74 including iridium (Ir) and other platinum group elements (PGEs), shocked quartz, nickel-spinels, 75 microtektites, and microkrystites (as reviewed in Alvarez 1996, Smit 1999, Claeys et al. 2002). 76 Impact markers like iridium are primarily deposited in thin, <<1 cm thick, event horizons at 77 distal sites (Smit 1999, Claeys et al. 2002) before being remobilized by sedimentary processes 78 like bioturbation, geochemical remobilization or slumping. The cumulative affect of sedimentary 79 processes is preserved in the fossil record by the shape of the concentration profile of the impact 80 marker (e.g., the depth distribution of the material initially deposited in a single layer). As a 81 result, geologically instantaneous markers like impact ejecta and volcanic ashes have long been 82 used to quantitatively understand deep-sea sediment mixing (e.g., Glass 1969, Ruddiman and 83 Glover 1972, Guinasso and Schink 1975, Ruddiman et al. 1980). Concentration profiles of event 84 markers can be used to quantify the magnitude and duration of the initial, unmixed record of 85 both the impact marker and other sedimentary constituents like foraminifera, diatoms, and other 86 nanofossils (Ruddiman and Glover 1972). 87 At the K-Pg boundary a number of questions exist about the ecological, evolutionary, and 88 biogeochemical response in the decades to millennia following the impact, as most sediment 89 records are well mixed over these time scales. However, despite an abundance of impact markers 90 and the potential utility of mixing models to quantify the effects of sediment mixing, we are 91 unaware of any previous attempt to use models to test hypotheses concerning sediment mixing 92 across the K-Pg boundary. Iridium anomalies at the K-Pg boundary have the potential to be 93 useful tracers of sedimentary mixing as they were deposited in a geologically brief interval and 94 have been measured at more sites and at a higher resolution than other K-Pg impact markers in press Earth and Planetary Science Letters 4 95 (Claeys et al. 2002). However, to be useful for such studies, the shape of iridium anomalies must 96 be primarily determined by sedimentary mixing and representative of the effect of sediment 97 mixing on other sedimentary constituents of interest, like marine microfossils. 98 Here, we address two issues. First, does the shape of vertical profiles of iridium 99 anomalies primarily reflect sediment mixing in oxic, pelagic sites distal to the impact or does it 100 primarily reflect other processes, like geochemical remobilization or volcanism? The shape of 101 the iridium anomaly – a peak with asymmetric up-core and down-core tails – has been attributed 102 to a number of sedimentary processes (e.g., Smit 1999, Stueben et al. 2002) including: i) 103 bioturbation and other sedimentary mixing processes like slumping (Kyte et al. 1985, Alvarez et 104 al. 1990), ii) diagenetic remobilization and diffusion (Kyte et al. 1985, Schmitz 1985, Wallace et 105 al. 1990), iii) prolonged deposition due to oceanic residence time of dissolved K-Pg impactor 106 iridium (Anbar et al. 1996), iv) prolonged deposition due to volcanism (Officer and Drake 1985, 107 Crocket et al. 1988, Rocchia et al. 1990), v) multiple impacts (Keller et al. 2003, Stuben et al. 108 2005), and vi) redeposition from primary deposits (Preisinger et al. 1986). Of these, only the 109 first five provide a global mechanism for shaping iridium anomalies. We evaluate evidence for 110 each mechanism in the literature and by modeling a highly resolved iridium anomaly in the 111 North Pacific (Shatsky Rise). 112 Second, we examine the theoretical range of effects that sediment mixing can have on 113 records of geologically instantaneous events. Here, we discuss issues that are well-known within 114 the sediment mixing community but that are sometimes missed in the interpretation of the 115 distribution of K-Pg boundary markers. These include the effects of lumpy mixing, sediment 116 grain size, and changing mixing intensity or depth. We illustrate these effects by examining 117 empirical K-Pg boundary records and by modeling iridium anomalies under a range of 118 theoretical mixing conditions with a Lagrangian advection-diffusion sediment-mixing model. in press Earth and Planetary Science Letters 5 119 2. Mixing model 120 Here, we introduce and use a Lagrangian particle-tracking model of sediment mixing, 121 which uses a stochastic algorithm to move material based on vertically varying diffusivities. Our 122 non-deterministic approach has several distinct advantages over deterministic mixing models: i) 123 it directly allows for the calculation confidence limits on concentration profiles, ii) since 124 concentrations are not calculated on a spatial grid, it removes the problem of concentrations 125 diffusing unrealistically quickly through the domain, and iii) it can be readily modified to 126 incorporate random processes like lumpy mixing. 127 The simplest and most widely used sediment mixing models are advection-diffusion 128 models. In an advection-diffusion model, the record of a sedimentary event is distributed within 129 a mixed layer according to a mixing coefficient (e.g., diffusion coefficient), while being advected 130 into a historic layer of sediment that predates the event (Goldberg and Koide 1962, Guinasso and 131 Schink 1975). Typically, concentrations of a property are calculated at fixed grid points (e.g., 132 depths), leading to systematic numerical errors and numerical diffusion. Basic advection- 133 diffusion approaches generally do not model non-local mixing like the lumpy mixing of large 134 burrowers that occasionally carry surface sediment to great depths (Smith et al. 1986). While 135 non-local sediment mixing models do exist (e.g., Boudreau and Imboden 1987, Trauth 1998, 136 Shull 2001), they are difficult to parameterize from tracer profiles alone (Boudreau 1986a, b, 137 Boudreau and Imboden 1987) and do not necessarily outperform advection-diffusion models 138 (Meysman et al. 2003). 139 Our model is a one-dimensional Lagrangian particle-tracking model with a depth- 140 dependent eddy diffusivity modified from Tanaka and Franks (2008). Sediment mixing was 141 driven by vertical diffusivity (Kv), which we modeled as a decreasing hyperbolic tangent (tanh) 142 function (Fig. 1). The tanh function captures a fundamental feature of sediment mixing, namely, in press Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6 143 the existence of a superficial well-mixed layer underlain by increasingly unmixed sediments. The 144 tanh function generates a vertical diffusivity profile that is continuously differentiable with depth 145 – a property that is desirable for modeling depth-dependent diffusivities (Ross and Sharples 146 2004). The depth of sediment mixing and diffusivity are expected to primarily be a function of 147 the flux of organic matter to the deep sea (e.g., Trauth et al. 1997, Smith and Rabouille 2002), 148 and are used here as free parameters for tuning the mixing model to fit measured iridium 149 anomalies. 150 Three parameters define sediment mixing: i) z0 is the depth of the inflection point in the 151 tanh profile, delineating the bottom of the well-mixed layer of sediment, ii) zscale is the e-folding 152 scale for the tanh profile and determines the depth over which mixing asymptotes to zero, and 153 iii) K0 is the maximum vertical diffusivity.
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